Dear Attorney General Holder, we the undersigned citizens hereby petition you to aggressively investigate and prosecute the many and various crimes we believe have been committed both by and under the Bush Administration.
For eight long years the Citizens of the United States have stood by helplessly and watched as crime after crime has been committed by the President, the Vice President and their political appointees and staff. Including the corruption and politicization of the Department of Justice which you now head. In fact the corruption of your department, the DOJ, is indeed one of the greatest crimes they have committed, as it has shielded them, not just from full prosecution as evidenced in the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame case, but from nearly all accountability and investigation by the corruption of the subpoena process by which our laws hold our officials accountable. No citizen is immune from subpoena, and neither should be our government officials. Your department has not only been politicized and abused, it has been used to, as Patrick Fitzgerald put it, “throw sand in the face of the umpire.”
We as citizens are subject to the rule of law, and we demand that our government and its officials be as well. We as citizens have lost faith in our justice system, as we have watched it be abused by the Bush Administration. Only you Attorney General Holder can restore that faith. And it may only be restored by the aggressive and unrelenting prosecution of those who have corrupted it. One of the most important founding principles of America is that no man is above the law. That principle must be restored and it is your responsibility to do so. The eyes, and the hopes, of our nation are upon you Attorney General Holder, at this critical time.
The list of offenses is long, ranging from minor violations of the Hatch Act to what a former president and head of the CIA classified as treason, the exposure of an entire CIA counter-terrorism network:
GEORGE H.W. BUSH: “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”
(insert rest of list, which we shall build, here)
These investigations and prosecutions that we so strongly urge you to undertake and pursue will have many consequences. Some of them could prove to be politically inexpedient for or new president and especially for the Democratic congress that has refused to fully uphold and pursue their own investigations and prosecutions. We urge you just as strongly to, unlike your predecessors Attorneys General Mukasey and Gonzales to ignore these political considerations and consequences in the pursuit of justice.
Our justice system has been corrupted and compromised. Our standing as an nation that hews to the Rule of Law above all else has been gravely and perilously threatened. Only one man, standing independent from all other considerations, can restore both our standing, the Rule of Law in our great nation, and the integrity of the Department of Justice itself, Attorney General Holder. And that man is you. We are counting on you.
Ok. it needs polishing and such, and obviously we need the list of crimes!
But what do y’all think of addressing this directly to the AG, and how does the tone strike you?
What else do we need and what ideas have all of you embarrassingly smart pipples come up with?
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How does it look on your flagpole?
without the crime that he has already admitted to:
Wiretapping without a FISA warrant.
It’s cut and dried and criminal and already acknowledged it happened.
Get Kucinich and Wexler involved.
Kucinich has already drawn up extensive articles of impeachment. Wexler has been an unflagging supporter of the impeachment movement. Get them involved and ask if what they’ve already done can be attached to this effort.
I’d argue that we didn’t stand by helplessly, we have tried to do something but were thwarted by a co-conspiratorial Congress.
maybe something like:
We beseech you to do what is within your authority and observe the Constitution’s provisions for despots of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Americans demand accountability!
Just as we’re trying to figure out a means of returning to the rule of law, the following was recently published:
Be sure to check out the vote totals. Unbelievable!
Yes.
Though y’know…when I look at what the law is used for…I don’t see a nation which hews to the rule of law, I see a nation which has fetishized it as an expression of poor upbringing.
Would be nice to have Bushco held accountable. But to what? It would also nice to have Gates held accountable for war crimes involvement in central america. Neither of these things would compare to seeing the justice system cease to be a mechanism for the warehousing, management and destruction of the poor and racial minorities.
My cynical fear is that Gates — and by extension the Obama admin — are going to be looking for legislative action on a “military tribunals lite” to provide the necessary cover to close Guantanamo as a prison. And we’ll see some of our worst fears enacted as law with the support of a constitutional scholar president, who will make it stick. Hopefully, I’m paranoid (and wrong).